Bio

Kara Ruth Snyder

BA, Philosophy and Art History, Duquesne University, 1990. Associate’s Degree, Computer Animation and Multimedia, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, 1995. Studied under the tutelage of many well-known Pittsburgh artists, most notably: William DeBernardi, Pat Barefoot, Ron Donoughe, Linda Wallen, Robert Robinson, Elizabeth Castonguay and Patrick Daugherty. Multiple courses in Figure Drawing and Painting, Pastel Painting, Landscape Painting and Abstract Art at both Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh and The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Nine years experience as an Arts Administrator, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Private instructor in Drawing and Cartooning, and Painting for children of all ages. Member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Society of Artists, and the Blind Artists Society. Exhibits locally and regionally. Work included in many private collections.

Kara is a visually impaired expressionist painter who primarily works in an abstract style. Her favored media are acrylics, charcoal, ink and pastel, as well as textural elements such as sand, pumice and fiber. What is most important to her in her work is examining the meditative aspect of the creation of art. Kara is intrigued by how the non-physical qualities of art, such as beauty and light, arise from the physical act of painting or mark-making. Kara uses an additive-and-subtractive technique of painting where she employs a cyclical process of layering and removing paint. It is through this process that the artist taps into something universal.